U.S.|Powerball Has 3 Big Winners, in California, Florida and Tennessee

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Powerball Has 3 Big Winners, in California, Florida and Tennessee

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People lined up to buy Powerball tickets in Hawthorne, Calif., on Wednesday. Record sales drove up the largest jackpot in United States history to $1.5 billion.CreditCreditMark Ralston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The world’s biggest lottery jackpot of $1.5 billion will be a three-way split of $528 million each.

Winning Powerball tickets — with the numbers 4-8-19-27-34 and the Powerball number, 10 — were sold in Chino Hills, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles; Munford, Tenn., about 25 miles north of Memphis; and Melbourne Beach, Fla., which is on the Atlantic Coast southeast of Orlando.

The winners will divide a jackpot that, based on final ticket sales, is worth $1.586 billion in total.

“I think we can all live on $528 million, don’t you think?” Russ Lopez, a spokesman for the California Lottery, said.

None of the winners has come forward, and Mr. Lopez encouraged them to hire lawyers, accountants and financial planners before they do.

“This person has one year from yesterday to claim their prize,” he said. “So, unfortunately we could be waiting for a long time before this person comes in a claims their winnings.”

“They can take their time. They may be getting ready,” he said, speaking at a news conference outside the convenience store where the winning ticket in California was sold. “This is a new life for them, a new journey.”

In addition to the winning jackpot tickets, lottery officials said eight tickets that won $2 million were sold in seven states, and 73 that netted $1 million were sold in 23 states.

With a one-in-292-million chance of winning the top prize, the odds were, to paraphrase “The Hunger Games,’’ never in your favor. That was lottery officials’ intention last year when they tweaked the number of balls to choose from to make it easier to win smaller prizes but harder to hit the jackpot.

The average Powerball player had a greater chance of being struck by lightning (the odds of that happening to you in a given year are one in 1.9 million, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) than of striking it rich by playing the numbers Wednesday night.

But statistics are a wet blanket if ever there was one, and millions of Americans kept their hopes alive, shelling out $2 per ticket. Tickets for the game were available in all but six states.

The jackpot on Wednesday was not just the largest in Powerball history, New York State lottery officials said, but also the largest of any lottery game in the United States. The jackpot started at $40 million on Nov. 7 and rolled over 19 times, with no one matching all six numbers.

The stores where winning tickets are sold also receive a payout.

In Chino Hills, the owner of the 7-Eleven store, Balbir Atwal, received an oversize check for $1 million. Mr. Atwal said he planned to give a part of his winnings to charity and share the rest with his employees and family.

“This is a land of opportunity,” said Mr. Atwal, who came to the United States from India in 1981. “Anybody who comes, you will achieve your dreams.”

Mike McPhate contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: National Briefing; Winning Powerball Ticket Is Sold in California. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe